Gadgets, Wwdc | featured news

Apple just unveiled the first of today's big announcements at its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco. Apple's new "next generation" MacBook Pro is a 15-inch laptop that's modeled after the MacBook Air. It includes a super high-resolution "retina" display - a first for the Mac - and is very thin: 0.71 inches. And it's actually not crazy expensive for Apple's Pro notebook lineup: It starts at $2,199, or $400 more than the entry-level "old" 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple's new "next generation" MacBook Pro is a 15-inch laptop that's modeled after the MacBook Air. It includes a super high-resolution "retina" display - a first for the Mac - and is very thin: 0.71 inches. And it's actually not crazy expensive for Apple's Pro notebook lineup: It starts at $2,199, or $400 more than the entry-level "old" 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Apple just unveiled a bunch of new iPhone and iPad features coming this fall in iOS 6, but no big surprises. The biggest new feature, as expected, is an entirely new Maps experience. Apple has taken over its maps back-end from Google, including a gorgeous 3D "flyover" mode, crowdsourced traffic information, Siri integration and turn-by-turn directions. (Public transit directions, a nice feature of Google Maps, seem to be missing. Perhaps Google will launch its own iOS Maps app now?)

The biggest new feature, as expected, is an entirely new Maps experience. Apple has taken over its maps back-end from Google, including a gorgeous 3D "flyover" mode, crowdsourced traffic information, Siri integration and turn-by-turn directions. (Public transit directions, a nice feature of Google Maps, seem to be missing. Perhaps Google will launch its own iOS Maps app now?)

In Steve Jobs fashion, Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco with a handful of key stats about its app ecosystem, which Cook called “an economy in itself.”

Here is what we think we know about what Apple will announce at WWDC on Monday about Apple TV. It will be releasing an SDK to allow developers to create apps for a new Apple TV App Store which will be part of iOS 6. The existing Apple TV device and an improved version of AirPlay will enable iOS devices to control the TV screen through mirroring and dual screen apps. iOS 6 will be deeply integrated with iCloud, which will bring email, contacts, calendars, documents, music, movies and photos all to the TV screen in a way that is fluid and synchronized with all of your other screens.